The Dead

There is no way to remember all my Dead.  They are many, and their names are lost to the universe.  Those that even had names.  My Dead were proud in their way, toiling in their journey to create better worlds for the future.  They pushed plows and wielded hammers.  A few even carried guns.  They brought children into an uncertain life, sometimes with intent, sometimes with surprise.  They stuck to their roots, they tore them up and replanted in better lands.  They saw the world from wagon and from ship, from calm village and burnt city.  Their ships sailed through waves and wind, and airplanes through clouds and radiation.  They borrowed and they saved, they worked and they dreamed.  They kept their eyes on the earth, careful to bring out its fruits.  They raised their eyes to the heavens, hopeful for blessings.  They set their gaze on better futures - a new spouse, a new house, a new country, a new life.  New knowledge was everywhere.  Languages that were not their own surrounded them, and all became theirs.  People that were strangers became family.  Family far away were as strangers.

My Dead are stories on a page and a screen, their lives are notes and images on paper.  My Dead are brief flashes in a wooden box, a pastry, a story warped from its first living.  But all the Dead are there, they are there, they are resting, and they are gone.  And they are mine and all of ours.  They are as we will be, to the future.